Mission Yearbook: NWC associate discusses listening for God’s voice in community

Since the Presbyterian Foundation’s broadcast “Leading Theologically” has been exploring discernment, the show’s host, the Rev. Zoë Garry, knew just who to call to be her guest: her old friend and mentor, the Rev. Michael Gehrling. Their half-hour conversation is available here.

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Gehrling, who’s worked eight years in Presbyterian Life & Witness’ 1001 New Worshiping Communities movement, where he’s associate for recruitment and assessment, is himself an experienced church planter. He recalled for Garry, associate director for theological education funds development for the Presbyterian Foundation, a memorable experience while still in seminary of hearing God’s voice while driving college students home in a church van.

“I very clearly heard God say to me that I was going to plant a church with my friend,” a fellow seminarian, Gehrling said. “I grew up in a church where things like that didn’t happen — and if they did happen, people didn’t talk about it.”

Gehrling “was experiencing God telling me to do something I wouldn’t have thought to do otherwise, and I needed other people in my life to help me interpret that.” He said he was fortunate to have mentors, including Vera White, who at the time was the staff member at Pittsburgh Presbytery tasked with helping new churches to flourish. “She told me to start prayer-walking in the different neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, trying to determine where God was calling me to go,” Gehrling told Garry. “There was a lot of discernment around learning to trust that voice I had heard and also to invite the voices of other human beings into that work. I think that’s what discernment is — it’s listening to God ourself, but it’s also listening to the voice of God through others.”

Sharing with others that we’ve heard the voice of God isn’t something all of us are comfortable with, Garry said. Gehrling said he had a friend in the church youth group he grew up in who thought God does indeed speak today, but we just don’t know it.

Since hearing God’s voice that initial time, Gehrling has heard it several more times, “and I’ve had people teach me how to be more sensitive to the Spirit at work.” It’s changed the way he reads Bible stories, he said. “I used to read the stories of the prophets and the apostles, and I assumed when they were hearing God speak, it was hitting them over the head a little bit.” But for Gehrling, “it was an undeniable voice, and if others were there they would be hearing and seeing the same thing.”

Garry, who recently attended a 1001 New Worshiping Communities training that employed the Discerning Missional Leadership Assessment, asked Gehrling to explain how potential church planters can use the assessment.

The assessment is part of a five-day retreat that includes conversations on the nature of the work of starting something new and “some of the activities involved in that,” Gehrling said. The conversation also includes a look at “how we speak about Jesus and how we alter or transform our language a little bit so we’re not using words that have meaning to us in the church but don’t have a lot of meaning to folks outside the church,” terms including “Lord,” “Savior” and “Messiah.” They also discuss how to best work with others and how to build a team. “We also reflect on who we are — what our strengths are, where we’re going to have to grow in ourselves just to really flourish in this work,” he said.

The strength of the DML assessment is twofold, Gehrling said. “One is wanting to give folks every opportunity to bring forward the best version of themselves,” he said, through written exercises, one-on-one and group conversations, and walking around the neighborhood and exploring it together. “We also wanted to make the process value-added for the participants,” he said. “We did not want this to be just hoop-jumping in order to get approval for funding.”

Such an assessment process involves “naming the awkwardness,” Gehrling said. “We’ve all been in this position of getting feedback from others. We know it can feel uncomfortable. We are doing this process wanting folks to flourish.”

Watch previous editions of “Leading Theologically” here.

Mike Ferguson, Editor, Presbyterian News Service (Click here to read original PNS Story)

Let us join in prayer for:

Keenan Rodgers, Church Consultant, Engagement & Church Relations, The Board of Pensions
Lauren Rogers, Associate Director, Stewardship & Major Gift Officer, Administrative Services Group

Let us pray:

Loving and merciful God, in Christ you welcome all your children with hope, grace and forgiveness. Lord, let your Spirit move in us. Help us to open our hearts, our arms and our doors to welcome your children home. Amen.